Category Archives: Uncategorized

Fiber Friday

Posted on by under Uncategorized

We had a fun day today. We played with fiber and dyes. A group of 8 of us got together at my house and dyed fiber – wool and silk as well as silk scarves and silk fabric. It was such fun.

Here’s several concentrating hard on the dye placement.
Here’s all our dye packages going in to the pot to steam.
Here’s a beautiful piece of silk.
Here’s a scarf. I overdyed a bunch of scarves that had not been selling in the store.
Then several people wanted to see how to nuno felt and I showed them the way I do that with a sander. It seems that I didn’t get any photos of the wool or silk fiber. But we did dye a bunch. Once I’ve gotten my scarves dried and ironed, I’ll take some photos to show you.

My Tree Page from Debi

Posted on by under Uncategorized

I received my tree page from Debi a week or so ago but hadn’t had the chance to post it. So here it is. Debi spent lots of time with French knots and beading. Isn’t it beautiful?

Here are the French knots.
And the beading.
And this is the back. Thanks Debi!!
I am having a bunch of people over on Friday to do some dyeing, some nuno felting and some needle felting so more photos soon!

Needle Felted Dolls Class

Posted on by under Uncategorized

WARNING: If you think dolls are creepy and you don’t want to see any, don’t read this post.

I took a needle felted doll course from Kay Petal of Felt Alive this past weekend. Here we are all making our egg shapes. She starts the bodies of all of her dolls with “egg” shapes and you make a total of 10 (different sizes of course). Here Kay looks like she’s praying that the class will be over soon.

Here are Kathy and Natalie working hard.
Here with Natalie again, Eva, Leah and Paula. My place is next to Paula but I wasn’t sitting much due to my back. I did a lot of standing needle felting.

And here are Jan, Wendy and Diane all slaving away with Kay looking on.

After we finished all our eggs, we started working on heads and faces. I didn’t get many process shots from step to step as I was working too hard to get my face going. This is Jan with her doll’s head after she’s done part of the shading.
Here’s Wendy’s doll head.
This is Diane’s. He is going to be Count Dracula.
This is Kay’s demo doll head. She kept changing his appearance to show us how easy it was to make different facial expressions by just a small amount of needling.
This is Paula’s head. She used a different skin tone than most people.
This is Leah’s head. He became a boxer.
This is Eva’s. She is making him into a cowboy. But then she made a second head as her body was too small for this head.
This is Natalie’s. She wasn’t too happy with him at first but he really turned out well in the end.
This is Kathy’s elf head. He turned out really cool.
Then we started working on bodies. This is my doll. I originally made him to sit down. But then I made humongous feet and he wanted to start standing.
Here he is after I first got him to stand.
With his clothes and hat. He’s a jester or perhaps “Jack Out of the Box”.
Didn’t Wendy’s turn out great? He’s going to have a kilt and be a Scotsman.
Here’s the whole crew. Aren’t they hilarious. All so different and most of these people hadn’t ever needle felted before Thursday. Pretty amazing teacher Kay is!
Here’s Kathy’s elf. Love the shoes!
And here are the proud parents!!
The class was amazing and if you ever have the chance and have any inclination to learn more about needle felting a doll, you should take Kay’s class or order her DVD’s. She is a wonderful teacher, guiding you to learn the basics but encouraging you to express yourself in wool and make your own doll not copies of hers.

Seashore Inspiration

Posted on by under Uncategorized

My next page for the Traveling Pages Swap is themed “seashore”. As there isn’t much seashore in Montana, I’ve had to look to the web for inspiration. So I found this photo that I liked – especially the bubbles part. I was also inspired by the hearts made by Caroline here. So I’ll get started on that soon. This weekend I’m taking Kay Petal’s needle felt a doll class so hopefully, I’ll get some photos of that up early next week. Have a good weekend!

April’s Tree Page from Elizabeth

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Here’s what I got in the mail today. It’s a beautiful tree page from Elizabeth with a flower photo card.

Elizabeth used fabric paper as the background, then stamped with one of her wonderful hand carved tree stamps. She added leaves and beads to the tree and around the edge. She says that she often uses music in her collage compositions and then found the poem about the music of trees.

The poem is:
There is always music amongst the trees in the garden,
but our hears must be very quiet to hear.

Here’s the back. She used some of her hand dyed fabric where she used a flour paste resist and then stamped another tree. Thanks Elizabeth! I love it.

Here’s a small peak at the page I am working on now with the theme of leaves. I’ve completed the front, now I just need to decide on the back and sew it all together.